The Price Tower, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is suddenly closed

The tower, which houses a boutique hotel, offices for local businesses, an art gallery and a historical museum, and a bar on its 19 floors, announced its closure on Friday. The majority of employees were laid off, tenants were given 30 days to move out, and all reservations for the hotel were canceled.

On Thursday, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy announced that it had filed declarations under the Uniform Commercial Code against the owners of Price Tower to “advise prospective purchasers that affected items from the collection may not be sold without the consent of the Conservancy.”

Earlier this year, the tower’s current owners sold a number of artifacts from the tower’s collections, including some items the historic preservation authority said were one of a kind, to 20c Design, a Dallas-based firm that specializes in high-end mid-century furniture and accessories.

The Nature Conservation Authority is of the opinion that these items are protected under its conservation easement with the Price Tower, which has existed since 2011.

According to Barbara Gordon, executive director of the Historic Preservation Authority, the conservation easement will remain in place in perpetuity, regardless of any change in ownership of the building.

“Our lawyers have been in touch with the folks at 20c Design, and their sale of these items appears to be on hold,” Gordon said. “Our next step is to negotiate with them on how to return these items to Price Tower and how to stop the sale of any more items from the building.”

The statements were filed with three companies: New Mexico-based Green Copper Holdings LLC, Delaware-based Copper Tree Inc. and Cynthia Blanchard, CEO of Copper Tree.

In an interview Monday, Blanchard said the decision to close the tower was partly due to historic preservation efforts.

“We had planned to hold out until July 31, but we weren’t sure how much we could do beyond that,” Blanchard said. “It was obvious we weren’t making enough revenue to sustain operations.”

“So we made the difficult decision to keep the hotel and bar open three days a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, to see if we could increase our customer traffic,” Blanchard said. “We thought we could make it through September, when bookings tend to increase.”

She said the combination of the conservation agency’s actions and “all this negative coverage” from some media outlets in Bartlesville “hit us like a bomb. It was pretty devastating and we thought the only thing we could do was close it down.”

Blanchard confirmed that most employees had been laid off, except for “a few people who keep the building in good condition.” She said tours of the historic building – the only skyscraper Wright designed and built – would continue.

Blanchard argues that the Conservation Authority’s conservation rights are no longer valid because of the change in ownership – from the nonprofit Price Tower Arts Center to the for-profit companies Blanchard oversees.

“We stand behind this legal position,” Blanchard said.

She said the loss of revenue from tenants – some of whom, like Bartlesville Monthly Magazine, had rent-to-own agreements – was relatively negligible.

“Most of our tenants pay about $4,000 to $4,200 a month,” Blanchard said. “The electricity bill for the tower is $15,000 to $17,000 a month.”

As for the documents submitted by the Conservancy, Blanchard submitted a prepared response: “With respect to the Conservancy’s statements regarding (Uniform Commercial Code) filings, to date we have not received any evidence of UCC filings. We continue to monitor these filings and, if we become aware of them, will take appropriate action to remove them.”

“We believe that the Conservancy’s public statements, as well as all of the negative and inaccurate reporting to date, have made continued operation of the company unviable. Therefore, we have taken the immediate step of ceasing operations to further evaluate our situation.

“We continue to review all such matters internally and will take appropriate action against any party we believe has unjustifiably harmed our business.”

Gordon said the concern of historic preservation is the preservation of Wright’s built environment. Wright designed every aspect of a particular project, down to the arrangement of furniture and the artwork on the walls.

“I think it’s really important that anyone who buys a Frank Lloyd Wright item knows the provenance of that item and knows that they are buying it from someone who has the authority to sell it,” she said.

Among the items the Historic Preservation Commission plans to return to Price Tower are a unique rolling signpost, architectural copper relief panels, an armchair, and copper tables and stools, all designed by Wright for Price Tower.

Gordon added that selling parts of Price Tower to keep it operating would be like “slaughtering the goose that laid the golden eggs.”

As for what will happen to the Price Tower, Blanchard said selling the building to a new owner is “on our list of solutions. And that list is getting shorter every day.”

She declined to say what the asking price for Price Tower would be. According to press reports at the time of Copper Tree’s purchase of the tower, its estimated value was $6,214,060.

“I would say whoever comes into power next will have an easier time because we’ve done a lot of hard work to get things sorted out,” Blanchard said. “I didn’t want to change much at the beginning because I didn’t want to upset the community. But in the end, that upset everyone because I wasn’t able to make changes as quickly and efficiently as I should have.”

Gordon said that if Price Tower were to be sold to new owners, “the buyer should have a clear picture of the property and also of this building. It is not like any other office tower you can imagine. Anyone who takes it over needs to know that this is a building you have to work with, that the building is in charge.”